Curriculum Vitae
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Mark takes a look at his permanent record.


Disclaimer: They are not my characters; I make no profit from them.

Rated: G

Author's notes: Just three short scenes that go somewhere between 'Rule X' and the not-yet-posted 'Hoops'. This one contains tangential references to at least six episodes, as well as some of my earlier stories, plus a paraphrased quote from Cheride's "Road to Recovery".

Thanks, as always, to the indispensable beta's, Cheri and Susan, who both (unlike me) knew how to spell McCormick's Parole Officer's name.

Curriculum Vitae

By L. M. Lewis

McCormick found it on the table at breakfast that Saturday morning. At first he thought the judge must have simply forgotten to put it away. He'd had it out a lot the past half year, first for the hearing in front of Judge Jenkins, the one that had gotten McCormick his Certificate of Rehabilitation, and then later on as Hardcastle had prepared for Mark's bar hearing.

But that had been over for a month now, and their approval had come back last week. So why was the file out now?

There had been a time, years ago now, when he would have given a great deal to have studied its contents. He'd known about its existence right from the start, Hardcastle had made no secret about it. The judge had lots of files, mostly on people he wanted to take down--four file cabinets full of the things. Some, like this one, were about people he had a continuing interest in; those were in a file drawer in his desk, which the judge kept locked.

The past six months, this file had nearly doubled in size, due to the judge's efforts on his behalf. McCormick had seen many of these new additions--a whole slew of affidavits and testimonials that the judge had solicited for him, but the rest of the file was terra incognita. Hardcastle hadn't offered to show it to him and he had not asked to look at it.

Now it was just sitting there, 'McCormick, Mark', the manila showing signs of age and frequent handling. McCormick reached out, touched it tentatively, and then pushed it over to the side to make room for the plates.

A moment later he heard Hardcastle on the stairs and a moment after that he was in the kitchen. "You're up early," he greeted him. "Oh, you found it." He pointed at the file.

"Ah, yeah, you forgot to put it away?" Though he wasn't sure exactly why, Mark was suddenly very glad that he had not been caught snooping through it.

The judge gave him an odd look. "Nah, I left it out. For you. Now that the hearings are over. I thought you might want it." McCormick said nothing. The judge went on, "I should have given it to you three years ago, when your parole was up, but I'm glad I hung on to it; it was a lot of help the past few months." Mark nodded. "So, anyway, it's yours." The judge pushed it back towards him and gave it a quick tap.

McCormick cleared his throat, "Um, thanks," and then studiously ignored it as he turned to pull the toast out of the toaster.

00000

He'd made an effort to behave as though there were nothing out of the ordinary going through his head, as he sat at the table. When he'd finally spent a decent amount of time pretending to be enjoying his food, he got up, and carried his nearly-full plate to the garbage to scrape it off.

Hardcastle glanced up from the sports section, saw what he was doing and said, "You feeling okay?"

This was a level of cluelessness that Mark had never before encountered in his friend. Of course, the damn file had been underfoot for the better part of six months; most likely he thought Mark had already gone through it. There was no way he could know.

"Ah, yeah, just not hungry."

"Yeah, that's what I mean," the judge responded, gesturing with his fork, "you not hungry." McCormick smiled, refusing to be baited. The judge continued on, "Well, I was going to bring some burgers home to grill later. It's supposed to be a nice day today."

"Judge," McCormick fell into the patter easily, "this is LA; it's always a nice day." Then his dish was in the sink and he was standing by the table again, one hand on the file. "I'll get 'em later," he nodded towards the dishes, "when you're done. Take your time." He casually picked the file up and tucked it under his left arm. Just as casually he let himself out the front door, and strolled towards the gatehouse.

00000

He was sitting on the floor, his back against the bed, with the file next to him, open to the top sheet—a letter on White House stationary. He remembered quipping with the judge, after the rehabilitation hearing, where he'd first heard about the existence of this particular note of appreciation.

"— I never even voted for the guy."

And the judge's quick rejoinder, "'Course not, you were under sentence then, you couldn't vote for anybody."

When had it become something he could laugh off lightly? He wasn't sure. It just had. It was the past.

He turned down through the next dozen or more sheets. These were all things he had seen, very nice; the judge had hunted up law officials in five states and leaned on them to write these official thank-you notes. Beneath that was the list of convictions that had come about in the past six years, through the judge's endeavors, with notations stating the criminal offenses for each. McCormick had seen this, too, along with the attached testimonial, signed by the judge, crediting him with a large part of the success.

McCormick smiled. The list even included the one where he'd gotten thrown off the train and then destroyed a police car in order to get back on.

Below that was an envelope of newspaper clippings, some of them starting to show a little yellowing. He hadn't seen any of these, at least not for a few years. Some he didn't recognize at all—the one from a newspaper in Arkansas. He paged through them rapidly; every one contained his name, sometimes down in the fifth paragraph, but there nonetheless.

'--'and another man'. . . I'll be him, the other man', he'd told the judge, on a cold night in the woods in Oregon. But, no, here he was--Mark McCormick. It said so in black and white. He shook his head as he put the clippings back. He'd learned a long time ago that it didn't matter what other people thought, at least not most people.

There were two sheets held together by a paper clip--discharge papers from Olive View, the time he'd been shot: 'Aftercare instructions', the doctor's office and service numbers. "Hardcase," he murmured, "didn't you ever cull this thing out?" There was something stiffer caught in the paperclip behind the sheets. He pulled it free and stared at it in a moment of recognition--a Christmas card, the only one he'd ever had to send the judge. He put it down carefully on the growing stack.

Now he had reached the parole reports, Xeroxed copies, neatly stapled together. No doubt the originals were filed somewhere in the bowels of the State of California's record system. The top sheet was written in a crabbed little hand that he didn't recognize but knew belonged to John Dalem. He read with a strangely detached sense of curiosity. The man's dislike for him bled through the industrial writing style typical of official reports.

McCormick shook his head as he read on; back then he had believed he'd been doing pretty well, up until that nearly fatal late appointment, but it was clear that Dalem had disagreed. He had thought this ex-con was a smart-assed wise guy, and had been on the verge of yanking his ticket on a couple of occasions.

Then came a series of letters exchanged between Dalem, Hardcastle, and the parole commission, hammering out the new arrangement. Dalem became his P.O. in name only. Hardcastle assumed responsibility. It had been nowhere near as cut-and-dried as the judge had made it out to be; there had been wrangling, Dalem resisting all the way. Hardcastle's dislike for Dalem was almost as apparent as Dalem's had been for Mark. McCormick had never guessed, but now the appearance of the judge in Dalem's office, that Friday afternoon six years ago, took on another shade of meaning; maybe Mark had not been the only one the judge was passing inspection on that day.

The second stapled stack was thicker; the handwriting was the judge's. Mark paused; he still felt odd, like he was intruding on the man's thoughts. _He gave this to you, _he reminded himself, as he began to read.

The reports were detailed in places, but a pattern gradually emerged. There were times when he barely recognized the events described, particularly when he got to some of his more dubious escapades. Nothing was left out, but there were some subtle adjustments made to the facts. It was both entertaining, and educational, to see the precarious relationship the judge's notes maintained with reality.

_And you called me a facile liar._

And then he paused. These were official reports, available to be reviewed by the parole commission, always the final arbiter on matters of revoking parole. _He couldn't lie, but he couldn't always tell the whole truth, either_. It must have been nerve-wracking.

_He did this for two and a half years. I was watching a high-wire act and I didn't even know it._

He sat there with the sheaf in his lap for a moment, then put it very carefully on top of the others. The papers from San Quentin he barely touched, moving them quickly to the side. Below that were only a few ancient photocopies, things from 'L.B.H.', as he had come to refer to it—Life Before Hardcastle. Not much there. His juvenile record had been sealed. There were the records of his scrapes with the law in Florida, his lackluster high school transcripts, and a birth certificate. _Father's name—unk._ None of that was important.

He heard the truck door open and then shut, and the engine turning over, as he carefully put each item back in the folder. He stood up and looked out the window as the judge drove down the drive, off to do errands and fetch the grilling supplies. It was a nice day for a drive. Mark thought for a moment, and then turned back to get something from his desk drawer.

00000

**Nine days later**

Hardcastle frowned. He would have asked McCormick if he knew where it was-- Arthur Shumacher's address. He was sure he'd put it on a piece of paper by the phone. But McCormick was off at class and, anyway, he would just tell him to go look it up again; it wasn't worth turning the place upside down for.

The judge fumbled in his pocket for his keys, and sat down at his desk. He opened the drawer and—stared down at the file, obviously thicker than the rest, exactly where it had been before, between Hammond and Mueller.

He frowned again and pulled it out; everything was in there, nothing added, nothing taken away. Well, in truth, he'd taken a couple of things out himself, before giving it to McCormick—the note Mark had written before going undercover at the County psych ward, and three letters Hardcastle had written to Sonny Daye over the years, the last one dating from just after Mark's pardon, all stamped, 'Return to Sender, addressee unknown'. He'd kept those back. But everything else was as it had been, and all carefully returned to a locked drawer.

He'd had six years to crack the code that was Mark McCormick when he didn't want to talk about something. This one was pretty easy. He had put the file back where it belonged; lots of things might be different now, but maybe that was even more reason for this to stay the same. What had he said one time? _I want you to trust me, Judge, but what if I don't always trust myself?_

Hardcastle smiled; he had a lot of trouble picturing McCormick falling off the wagon at this point, but maybe the kid would always have a little room for doubt. These recent hearings had dredged up a lot of old stuff.

As for the locked drawer, that was easy, too. He'd just wanted him to know that he'd always had the choice to go into that drawer, and that he'd chosen not to. Hardcastle put the file back, and took out Shumacher's, copied what he needed, and put that away, as well. Then he closed the drawer, turned the key in the lock and removed it.

The file really was McCormick's now, even if he did still want the judge to have indefinite custody. He studied the key for a moment before dropping it back into his pocket, and smiled again; just maybe it was time to have a copy of that key made.


End file.
